Newswise — A design for a hydrogen-powered community in California by students from Missouri University of Science and Technology captured the grand prize in the national Hydrogen Student Design Contest sponsored by the Hydrogen Education Foundation.

Missouri S&T was announced as the grand prize winner Tuesday, May 4, at the National Hydrogen Association’s Hydrogen Conference and Expo in Long Beach, Calif. This marks the second time in three years that a Missouri S&T team won the student design contest.

For this year’s competition, the Missouri S&T team designed a scalable hydrogen fueling station for the community of Santa Monica, Calif., and identified renewable hydrogen sources in the community as well as customers for early-market hydrogen applications.

The team’s eight students designed a station capable of dispensing at least 200 kilograms of hydrogen per day. As an outreach to inform the public about the benefits of hydrogen power, team members also designed a public education facility to be constructed from a recycled shipping container.

Their work was based on criteria outlined in the California Fuel Cell Partnership’s Action Plan 1, a 2009 strategy for developing early hydrogen communities in that state over the next eight years.

The Hydrogen Design Contest is an annual event that challenges teams of university-level students from around the world to develop and design hydrogen applications for real-world use. Established in 2004 by the Hydrogen Education Foundation, the contest showcases the talents of students in many disciplines, including engineering, architecture, marketing and entrepreneurship. Students from colleges, universities and vocational schools worldwide are eligible to participate. More than 30 teams from all over the world signed up for the competition.

As the grand prize winner, the S&T team was invited to present its design at the Hydrogen Conference and Expo and at the World Hydrogen Energy Conference to be held May 16-19 in Essen, Germany.

In 2008, a Missouri S&T team won the grand prize by designing systems to address air and water quality, noise pollution, energy efficiency, and safety and security issues at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport in Columbia, S.C.